(I am now A Columnist. Published every Monday. Which would seem to give me time to write over the weekend, except that my deadline is Friday. Bggrrttt.
But yes, it does ensure that there will be at least one post a week on this blog. Recycling is so cool.
Unfortunately, while I can post my columns on the blog, I cannot send off old posts to be printed as columns. Bother.
Anyway, this one was written as the “sound of the deadline whooshing by” built up to a gale-force roar. Came out on Monday the 12th. Tomorrow’s column has been submitted. And I’ve already started on next Monday’s. Oh what a good boy am I!)
Travel is romantic. To arrive in a new country, draw a deep breath and go “Ah, I’m in Lantau!” (or Lima or Lagos, as the case may be).
Unfortunately, your luggage is in Sevastopol. Romance gives way to a feeling more like sand in your underwear. It’s the middle of the night, there are no stores open and the rest of your underclothes are in that suitcase in Sevastopol. How does one deal with the situation?
More relevant, how does the airline deal with a situation where baggage is in Europe while the passenger’s in Asia? Alitalia – as reported on the Internet last year - would immediately go on a wildcat strike. By the time the first irate passenger located the airline service desk, the staff would be downing grappa on the Via Cavour (presumably with much gesticulation and shrugging).
Some airlines, however, exhibit admirable resilience and efficiency.
Last Wednesday night the Lufthansa flight to Kolkata landed on time. The luggage did not. The large Lufthansa team – all 3 of them – swung into action to help the milling passengers. By hiding behind a convenient pillar. When rousted out, they demonstrated their customer-friendly attitude by distributing forms. To be filled in triplicate. Deposited. Receipted. Produced whenever the airline saw fit to produce the missing luggage. On the next flight. Saturday. Perhaps Sunday. Next week, next year, some time, never.
Sundry open-mouthed passengers hitched their jaws off the airport floor. And asked, what about NOW? What about clothes, toiletries, medicines? What about children and their milk, diapers, Gerber’s ready meals? How do we manage till Sunday? Will you give us money to buy what we need? Whereupon the airline reps mumbled vaguely, smiled sweetly and disappeared hurriedly. End of Act 1.
Two days of investigation produced some enlightenment and much pique. But no compensation. The city office phones are not answered because there IS no city office. A forlorn voice from the airport eventually said yes, we SHALL offer you compensation – 50% of your expenditure on clothes and 100% on toiletries. With no limit.
No limit? Good! We have a wedding to attend, can we buy fresh trousseaus from Sabyasachi, spend a couple of lakh? An audible gulp from the other end of the line, then a befuddling clarification: we pay 50% of what’s reasonable. As decided by our city team. Devastating obfuscation. In essence, Lufthansa delay your luggage, do not pay any compensation unless pushed, have no clear policy or limits in the matter and no transparency.
The first response is, only in India! This couldn’t happen in the West. Alas, a little research revealed that the air traveller really is beleaguered worldwide.
In May 2010 the EU Special Court of Justice ruled that the liability of a carrier in the case of destruction, loss, damage or delay of baggage is limited to approximately €1134.71 (an odd figure, yes, but the equivalent of 1000 Special Drawing Rights) per passenger. The Warsaw / Hague / Montreal protocols fix an upper limit for compensation of 17 SDR per kilo of luggage, about €18.5 or Rs. 1089. There is no stipulated minimum.
Basically, if the airline plays fast and loose with your luggage, you can scheme. Or argue. Or give up. But you cannot cite a general law.
You have been warned.
(Update: The luggage arrived last Sunday. Forms for compensation were filled in. Bills in triplicate were attached. Suddenly … nothing happened. It’s been a week.)
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Gu-what-i?
Three egrets fly in formation past my window, followed by a flight of crows. They must be going home to roost. It’s barely half past three and already dark as a December dawn in Delhi. Earlier, I could just make out the hills ringing the valley, shadows in the winter fog. Now they have vanished in the haze. Darkness flows in from the horizon and laps against my window. Guwahati. Is it just coincidence that it has the same first syllable as Guantanamo? Maybe. After three hours in this hotel room, Guantanamo seems like Ibiza.
If anybody from Guwahati is reading this, my apologies. I was here last year and stayed at an old hotel with 70mm views of the Brahmaputra on one side and on the other, windows that framed a picture-perfect green hillside punctuated with amazing bursts of flowers, the kind of hillside that is supposed to exist only in the paintings of Gauguin and Matisse. I loved it. Even though the only reason I stayed over was a bandh that resulted in my flight home being cancelled, I loved it. It was a two-day idyll out of some Pacific island time-warp.
THIS time, I’m at a squeaky new budget hotel that’s some distance from the city itself. Some distance? The Brahmaputra may not even be in the same time zone! From the window I can see (a) what-might-be-hills-if-they’d-quit-hiding, about half a dozen (b) building under construction, one (c) building completed but still utterly hideous, one (d) water tank, spidery, one (e) dog lying in dust and apparently making a snack of a certain-part-of-itself, one (f) man with his back to me but evidently inspired by aforesaid dog, also one (g) fields full of stubble and miscellaneous weeds like a cheap salad, about 537. Diverse? Perhaps. Inspiring? Like a Mariah Carey video. Why the hell am I here?!
(This is a thought that has come to me rather too often. In a heaving sweaty college auditorium strewn with a few hundredweight of ballot papers, in a little green-painted room by the light of a sputtering candle listening to the creak-clang of a tube-well where there wasn’t one, standing in the sun outside a mill looking at a crowd-turning-into-mob, being practically force-fed parathas with sincere Punjab hospitality while waiting for a judge to turn up in court. The answer, regardless of the occasion, is “Because you signed up for it, sucker”. But those are other stories.)
So here I stand, cup in hand, Room Service won’t take my call. The coffee’s gone, I can’t go on, I curl up in a ball … I have a caffeine addiction. Once I get into a hotel room, I have to, have to have HAVE to, have a coffee. It’s a ritual. Even if the only thing available is that execration from the armpits of the devil, Nescafe sachets. But … the coffee-maker won’t work. Agh. So I sit by the window and I watch the clouds roll by. No I didn’t. I went downstairs and got a coffee from the kitchen. These are nice guys. I mean, what would YOU do if some bald plugugly (dressed in black, yet) strolled through your swing doors and said he was just following his nose? They didn’t throw me out, they didn’t call security. Instead, they smiled, assured me they’d get me some coffee and tut-tutted sympathetically about the broken coffee-maker. (THEN they shooed me out. Politely.)
Then the vending machine ate my money. It just sat there smugly and blinked at me. “Change not available”. Yeah OK, so give me back my money. More smugness. Blink blink. “Change not available”. I took a deep breath and walked away from the machine before I gave in to temptation and broke the bloody glass front.
* * * * * *
Seven in the morning now and the work-day beckons. I can’t say I’m allured, but what the hell, if I have to spend my Sunday earning my pay, I might as well do it properly. Yesterday evening it was tap-tap on the laptop correcting, summarizing, clarifying even though not more than 3 of the 50 people in that hall today will even bother to read the hand-outs. It was not pleasant. Until our local organizer, bless him, chivvied me into the next room where he plied 3 colleagues and myself with Islay’s best and finest. And then led us through the foggy chill to a restaurant where we were served steaming fragrant rice heaped in a shaped mound on a bell-metal plate, with bowls of daal and torkari arrayed around it like petals in a child’s drawing of a flower. Followed by course after course of fish done just right i.e, not messed about too much in sauces and spices. Highlights - mutton lightly curried in ginger, and succulent pieces of the biggest damn aarh (estuarine catfish) that I have ever had. Oh yes. Before the meal we were served a lovely palate-cleansing clear soup with spices, rather like a Thai soup but blessedly free of lemon grass. I asked if it’s a traditional Ahomiya preparation but was told it has no name. Can anyone enlighten me? And for those of you who may visit Guwahati (I’m looking at you, Thin Man), check out “Delicacy”. Well worth a visit.
Heigh-ho, off to work we go. Snow White, wherever you are, prepare to do without Grumpy, Dopey and Sneezy. I’m the avatar for all three of them today.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Trafficking
I want a Humvee. Or an armoured personnel carrier. A small one would do. Say, about 6 tons of hard angry vehicle. With the Mother of all Snow Ploughs welded on in front. And then I would drive it around. In Calcutta. WHOOSSHH around the roundabouts. And KERR-RUNCCCHHH into all the bloody taxis and buses and call-centre cars that dawdle around corners picking up passengers or waiting for them. Oh, the mangled metal. The GORE. The bruised bleeding bits of morons who can’t walk 20 steps to a bus-stop. The crash bang tinkle of Moron Mobiles slowly falling to bits. The surrrr-THWUM-budda-budda-budda as the occasional tyre flies off, bounces twice, rolls a few yards, wobbles and then settles onto its side.
And then I would raise the hatch and peer out, blink in a surprised manner, and say “Oh dear, are you HURT? I’m SO sorry, but I never expected anyone to Be Parked on a CORNER.”
And then I would reverse my 6 tons of armour for a bit and then RUN IT INTO THEM AGAIN. AhahahahahHAHA. The joy. The JOY! Take THAT you STUPID SUCKERS!
The morons will still win, of course. Because now all these bleeding-heart empty-skullcase do-gooders are building bus shelters. ON THE CORNERS. The Motor Vehicles Act states clearly that no vehicle should stop within 30 feet of an intersection. Of course, neither the municipal authorities nor the police are bothered about such minutiae. Some Votary Club or Loins International or Mewa Bal will start to raise money for cancer research, find they’re stuck at Rs. 23,109 (and 37 paise, that will clear up the little accounting error that the Chapter President’s nephew left in the books the year we let him loose on the audit). And they’ll say, you know what, this much money will do zip for cancer research, let’s build a bus shelter instead. Right slap bang on a corner, of course.
Which is why a Humvee wouldn’t do, no sir. It has to be the armoured vehicle. Which I can drive STRAIGHT OVER the Bus Shelter on the Corner, oh, I love the crunch of concrete in the mo-o-orning, and bowl away merrily playing “Kashmir”. Over the loudhailer. Of course there has to be a loudhailer. And a horn that sounds like the crack of doom. Oooohhh yerrsss. The horn is very important. VERY. You know why?
Because at 8 a.m. every morning, outside my daughter’s school, there will be 5248 cars all trying to get Right to the Gate before dropping off their little darlings. And ALL of them will be honking away because of course each one of them thinks HE is the only one in a hurry, why on EARTH would anybody stop in front of MY car, can’t they see How Important I Am?! What? Schools and hospitals are supposed to be SILENCE zones? Who the hell reads all that fine print?
Which is why, from my Armoured Vehicle with a Humongous Horn, I shall pull the Honker Version of Crocodile Dundee. (Remember that scene with the mugger where he looks in pity at the mugger’s knife, then pulls out a young scimitar about 37 feet long and says “You call that a knife? THIS is a knife!”)
So I shall wait till EVERYbody’s honking and then Lean on the Special Horn. At about 240 decibels. And after the glass has fallen out of all the car windows and the tyres have imploded and the morons’ eyeballs have stopped bouncing on their stalks, when there is a Sudden Silence broken only by the soft susurration of mortar running off the buildings, I shall switch on my loudhailer. And murmur into it, in a Voice of Quiet Menace – imagine Alan Rickman trying to be nice in “Die Hard” – “Next time you feel like making stupid noises, gentlemen, I shall be right behind you”.
Which brings me to another very good use for the Baby Tank with the Loudhailer. Calcutta is full of Good Souls who are Very Sociable. And Large Aunties who Need their Own Space. And People in an Awful Hurry who Couldn’t Be Bothered About Traffic. And ALL these Types will jaywalk. Across the road, half-way in from the sidewalk (sidewalks? Just because you build them, I have to WALK on them? What is this, a fascist state?!), down the MIDDLE of the bloody road. And I would steal up behind them Very Quietly and then, oh THEN I would Let Rip on the 240 decibel horn. Or maybe play a recording of screeching brakes over the loudhailer. And watch the Waking of the Jaywalker.
You know how, in Asterix panels, people fly right out of their pants when Obelix swats them? And come back to earth in an accordionated heap, followed by the tinkle of descending teeth? That’s how I imagine it would be. Jaywalker, deboned and filleted by Sudden Crack of Doom, flying through the air like Superjellyfish. Pants, abandoned, standing on their own for a frozen moment before gently falling in a heap. Oh wait … would that apply to the Large Aunties too? Eeewwww. The imagination boggles like billy-o.
Oh well. I shall just have to look the other way to preserve my sanity. A small price to pay for implementing the Grand Design.
Right then. I’m off to eBay to look for an armoured personnel carrier at a bargain price.
And then I would raise the hatch and peer out, blink in a surprised manner, and say “Oh dear, are you HURT? I’m SO sorry, but I never expected anyone to Be Parked on a CORNER.”
And then I would reverse my 6 tons of armour for a bit and then RUN IT INTO THEM AGAIN. AhahahahahHAHA. The joy. The JOY! Take THAT you STUPID SUCKERS!
The morons will still win, of course. Because now all these bleeding-heart empty-skullcase do-gooders are building bus shelters. ON THE CORNERS. The Motor Vehicles Act states clearly that no vehicle should stop within 30 feet of an intersection. Of course, neither the municipal authorities nor the police are bothered about such minutiae. Some Votary Club or Loins International or Mewa Bal will start to raise money for cancer research, find they’re stuck at Rs. 23,109 (and 37 paise, that will clear up the little accounting error that the Chapter President’s nephew left in the books the year we let him loose on the audit). And they’ll say, you know what, this much money will do zip for cancer research, let’s build a bus shelter instead. Right slap bang on a corner, of course.
Which is why a Humvee wouldn’t do, no sir. It has to be the armoured vehicle. Which I can drive STRAIGHT OVER the Bus Shelter on the Corner, oh, I love the crunch of concrete in the mo-o-orning, and bowl away merrily playing “Kashmir”. Over the loudhailer. Of course there has to be a loudhailer. And a horn that sounds like the crack of doom. Oooohhh yerrsss. The horn is very important. VERY. You know why?
Because at 8 a.m. every morning, outside my daughter’s school, there will be 5248 cars all trying to get Right to the Gate before dropping off their little darlings. And ALL of them will be honking away because of course each one of them thinks HE is the only one in a hurry, why on EARTH would anybody stop in front of MY car, can’t they see How Important I Am?! What? Schools and hospitals are supposed to be SILENCE zones? Who the hell reads all that fine print?
Which is why, from my Armoured Vehicle with a Humongous Horn, I shall pull the Honker Version of Crocodile Dundee. (Remember that scene with the mugger where he looks in pity at the mugger’s knife, then pulls out a young scimitar about 37 feet long and says “You call that a knife? THIS is a knife!”)
So I shall wait till EVERYbody’s honking and then Lean on the Special Horn. At about 240 decibels. And after the glass has fallen out of all the car windows and the tyres have imploded and the morons’ eyeballs have stopped bouncing on their stalks, when there is a Sudden Silence broken only by the soft susurration of mortar running off the buildings, I shall switch on my loudhailer. And murmur into it, in a Voice of Quiet Menace – imagine Alan Rickman trying to be nice in “Die Hard” – “Next time you feel like making stupid noises, gentlemen, I shall be right behind you”.
Which brings me to another very good use for the Baby Tank with the Loudhailer. Calcutta is full of Good Souls who are Very Sociable. And Large Aunties who Need their Own Space. And People in an Awful Hurry who Couldn’t Be Bothered About Traffic. And ALL these Types will jaywalk. Across the road, half-way in from the sidewalk (sidewalks? Just because you build them, I have to WALK on them? What is this, a fascist state?!), down the MIDDLE of the bloody road. And I would steal up behind them Very Quietly and then, oh THEN I would Let Rip on the 240 decibel horn. Or maybe play a recording of screeching brakes over the loudhailer. And watch the Waking of the Jaywalker.
You know how, in Asterix panels, people fly right out of their pants when Obelix swats them? And come back to earth in an accordionated heap, followed by the tinkle of descending teeth? That’s how I imagine it would be. Jaywalker, deboned and filleted by Sudden Crack of Doom, flying through the air like Superjellyfish. Pants, abandoned, standing on their own for a frozen moment before gently falling in a heap. Oh wait … would that apply to the Large Aunties too? Eeewwww. The imagination boggles like billy-o.
Oh well. I shall just have to look the other way to preserve my sanity. A small price to pay for implementing the Grand Design.
Right then. I’m off to eBay to look for an armoured personnel carrier at a bargain price.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Outclassed!
(My first foray into "guest-blogging". Here.)
Four little levers all in a row. One to stop, one to park, maybe one to go? I suppressed a faintly hysterical yelp and concentrated. OK, if we pull on THIS one …The lower part of the seat back suddenly thrust itself into my sacral region with a malevolent hiss. Rattled, I pulled at all the other levers in turn. With the result that when the stewardess came round with the cold towels, her plastic smile dissolved into a giggle at the sight of me. Sprawled in one corner of the seat in a most undignified manner, legs kicking in the air as the evil foot-rest moved up independent of the leg rest and the “recline” lever plotted my downfall.
I don’t think I’m particularly tech-challenged. Not a geek, no, but certainly not one of the lost-tribes-of-the-Amazon-forest types. Then why should I be so helpless in the grasp of a SEAT, darn it? Only it’s not just the seat. EVERYthing seems to conspire against me. You know how business class offers you “the widest variety of entertainment in the sky”? Riiigghhht. Now, where do the headphones go? I spent nearly 10 minutes on a flight to Dubai trying to conceal my utter perplexity, all but whistling nonchalantly while I felt around the armrests, bent over to peer at the middle upright, ran my fingers over the padded sides, looking for That. Damn. Socket. All to no avail. In the process I plugged my headphones into an ashtray. Or a fuelling port. Or the autopilot, even. I must have looked like Mr. Bean. Eventually the lady next to me heaved a deep sigh, gently removed my hand from the vicinity of her Dior-sheathed knee and pointed out the socket nestled under the armrest. Evil, I tell you. Whatever happened to standardization?
It’s all about upgrades, of course. I’m just not mentally equipped to fly business class. Last time, between Chennai and Delhi, the damn engineering even managed to ruin my “chiefest, sole delight”. Well, not sole, really. Salmon steak. In a lovely herb reduction. It was just about the best meal one could have hoped for, considering how grotty in-flight food usually is. I was smart. I did NOT try to open all the little packs of condiments, because I KNOW the vinaigrette is implanted with an evil computer chip that will make it splash all over my trousers. Or worse, on my neighbour’s trousers. I didn’t even try to figure out all the superfluous cutlery that cascaded out of the folded napkin. (THREE identical spoons for ONE meal? What is this, the St. James’ Court?!) Then I had to go and ruin it by deciding to watch some TV while I ate at my leisure.
You know how the nifty little TV screen folds out of the armrest? Yes, but why is it equipped to swivel in 27 different planes? Try working it round to face you when there’s already a large napkin-draped tray occupying the same space. In 3 minutes I managed about 29 different positions for the TV screen, none of them facing me. Rather like a Rubik’s cube. Then I gave in to destiny. And my temper. The stewardess ran out of her little curtained alcove at the sound that ensued.
Trying ineffectually to bend over the dinner tray to pick up (a) one soup bowl, empty (b) 236 pieces of fruit salad, all sticky (c) enough cutlery to fit out another French Revolution while at the same time avoiding (d) the baleful look of a neighbor with a sticky chocolate brownie in his lap and (e) a TV screen that seemed to be doubled over in laughter, I accepted that I do not BELONG in business class. Next time, no Rosa Parks song for me. Come on over to the back of the ‘Bus, I’ll be waiting right there. Given that I’m the large or economy size, it’s economy class for me from now on.
Four little levers all in a row. One to stop, one to park, maybe one to go? I suppressed a faintly hysterical yelp and concentrated. OK, if we pull on THIS one …The lower part of the seat back suddenly thrust itself into my sacral region with a malevolent hiss. Rattled, I pulled at all the other levers in turn. With the result that when the stewardess came round with the cold towels, her plastic smile dissolved into a giggle at the sight of me. Sprawled in one corner of the seat in a most undignified manner, legs kicking in the air as the evil foot-rest moved up independent of the leg rest and the “recline” lever plotted my downfall.
I don’t think I’m particularly tech-challenged. Not a geek, no, but certainly not one of the lost-tribes-of-the-Amazon-forest types. Then why should I be so helpless in the grasp of a SEAT, darn it? Only it’s not just the seat. EVERYthing seems to conspire against me. You know how business class offers you “the widest variety of entertainment in the sky”? Riiigghhht. Now, where do the headphones go? I spent nearly 10 minutes on a flight to Dubai trying to conceal my utter perplexity, all but whistling nonchalantly while I felt around the armrests, bent over to peer at the middle upright, ran my fingers over the padded sides, looking for That. Damn. Socket. All to no avail. In the process I plugged my headphones into an ashtray. Or a fuelling port. Or the autopilot, even. I must have looked like Mr. Bean. Eventually the lady next to me heaved a deep sigh, gently removed my hand from the vicinity of her Dior-sheathed knee and pointed out the socket nestled under the armrest. Evil, I tell you. Whatever happened to standardization?
It’s all about upgrades, of course. I’m just not mentally equipped to fly business class. Last time, between Chennai and Delhi, the damn engineering even managed to ruin my “chiefest, sole delight”. Well, not sole, really. Salmon steak. In a lovely herb reduction. It was just about the best meal one could have hoped for, considering how grotty in-flight food usually is. I was smart. I did NOT try to open all the little packs of condiments, because I KNOW the vinaigrette is implanted with an evil computer chip that will make it splash all over my trousers. Or worse, on my neighbour’s trousers. I didn’t even try to figure out all the superfluous cutlery that cascaded out of the folded napkin. (THREE identical spoons for ONE meal? What is this, the St. James’ Court?!) Then I had to go and ruin it by deciding to watch some TV while I ate at my leisure.
You know how the nifty little TV screen folds out of the armrest? Yes, but why is it equipped to swivel in 27 different planes? Try working it round to face you when there’s already a large napkin-draped tray occupying the same space. In 3 minutes I managed about 29 different positions for the TV screen, none of them facing me. Rather like a Rubik’s cube. Then I gave in to destiny. And my temper. The stewardess ran out of her little curtained alcove at the sound that ensued.
Trying ineffectually to bend over the dinner tray to pick up (a) one soup bowl, empty (b) 236 pieces of fruit salad, all sticky (c) enough cutlery to fit out another French Revolution while at the same time avoiding (d) the baleful look of a neighbor with a sticky chocolate brownie in his lap and (e) a TV screen that seemed to be doubled over in laughter, I accepted that I do not BELONG in business class. Next time, no Rosa Parks song for me. Come on over to the back of the ‘Bus, I’ll be waiting right there. Given that I’m the large or economy size, it’s economy class for me from now on.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Leaves a bad taste
Restaurants do not provide goods. They provide services. I don’t go to a restaurant because I can’t cook at home. I go there for the convenience, the ambience and yes, the quality of the food. Eating out is a combination of these three factors. When we’re really bushed, we order in. When we feel like hanging out, we go to some nice place where the food may not be all that great. When we have friends from out of town, we take them to some place where the food is awesome. And we accept that we are paying not so much for the actual food served as for the service, the surroundings, the pleasure of the senses and not just the palate.
So last night we went to Fire and Ice. I’ve been there once a couple of years ago and thought that it was not bad, but nowhere near good enough to justify the hype. Last night N* felt like a Med spread, so there we were. After some bread and antipasti (of which more later), we were served pasta Alfredo con prosciutto. And it was DRY. The pasta was beyond al dente, it was undercooked. (How can you get BOTH dry and hard unless you’re just terrible at cooking pasta?)
But we were tired. Hungry. So (after some effort) we managed to flag down a waiter. Asked him (very nicely, especially considering my level of fatigue, starvation and consequent irritation) to take the pasta back to the chef and have it tossed with some more Alfredo sauce. He looked bewildered. Then said he’d get back to us. Vanished. All this, mind you, while the pasta congealed and our tempers simmered. Shortly, one numbers Shorty arrived. We explained again (still nicely, but I counted to 20 first). He said (with Big Fake Smile) “Of course, sir!” We smiled back (happy non-fake smiles). THEN he said “But we will charge you extra for it.”
THUD.
Are you for real?!
Yes, we will charge extra.
Go away and do what you like. Just do it fast.
So, this Fire & Ice, which sundry friends have praised to the skies, serves BAD pasta. Even if it was a one-off, it would mean they do not have consistent quality.
Then, they have the immortal rind to tell you that if you want your food edible, that costs extra. I mean, what are they smoking?! (They actually charged FORTY per cent extra for tossing it up with sauce)
I am Not Happy. So here are all the wonderful things I noted about Fire & Ice.
1 – They’ve jammed in too many tables. It’s a fairly large space, so they must be really greedy to make it look crowded. I couldn’t lean back with my hands behind my head for fear of bumping into the pony-tailed ex-pat at the next table and giving him the Wrong Idea. (Fear because my gaydar beeped. Very loud.)
2 – The waiters need a LOT of training. They also need baths and laundry. And breath mints. And those chequered bandannas, the ones they wear to look like cool Latinos? They make them look like engine stokers. Grimy engine stokers.
3 – The menu is limited. Only two kinds of soup and one risotto? They do, however, have some variety in the pizzas and pastas. But no farfalle or fusilli, no gnocchi. Unless the waiters are clueless, in which case refer to Pt. 2 above.
4 – The so-called focaccia was more like pan pizza crust. Just about OK when slathered with melted mozzarella (what, you didn’t know I’m on a healthy eating trip?), but the insides were NOT soft and there was no discernible flavour. It’s supposed to be the same dough as pizza, but surely it shouldn’t have the texture and character of a pizza base? The jury’s out on the olive oil.
5 – The antipasti platter was mostly good. Decent salami (though sliced too thin for my liking), really good bocconcini and fresh tomatoes. No feta cheese, no lettuce or indeed any fresh greens, now that was a disappointment
6 – The pasta supposedly “con prosciutto” didn’t have prosciutto. Standard ham does NOT qualify as prosciutto. Especially if it's barely discernible to either the eye or the palate.
7 – I wanted to speak to the manager. He was not in the restaurant. Where is he, stuck between a pair of headphones down in Bangalore?
8 – They did not have a complaint book. I was given a sheet of paper, where I explained my dissatisfaction at some length. But I don’t know if it will reach management (or whether they will respond).*
Value for money? Well, this place is not cheap by Calcutta standards, but it’s not hideously expensive either. Except that bad food is bad value no matter what the price-line. Maybe I’m more critical because people have praised it to the skies. But really, this is no better than a neighbourhood joint that happens to be in an up-market location. The food is indifferent and the ambience is indeterminate.
And we could have overlooked all of this if their attitude hadn’t sucked big time.
I’m never going back there. Druther check out Café Toscana. And there’s always La Cucina.
* - I mailed them. It bounced.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Like a blessing come from Heaven ...
"... for something like a second / I was healed / and my heart was at ease." An epiphany? The menu proudly states that the steaks are made “specially in our modern Electric Griller” (said menu having been largely unchanged in form or content for the last 45 years). The fish meuniere melts in the mouth at the precise moment one reads that line, the two stimulii catalysing a smile that must surely fit the popular concept of “beatific”. So I knelt there at the delta / at the alpha, at the omega / I knelt there like one who believes.
Suddenly, all the niggling irritations dwindle. The parts of the world that were out of focus fit together with a discreet click (imagine a Rolls Royce door shutting. Imagine, furthermore, that the man shutting it is Reginald Jeeves).The brow, suddenly realising that Life is Not Half Bad, that in fact it would be not entirely incorrect to claim that Life is (taking it by and large, seeing it unalloyed and seeing it whole) Quite a Good Thing, becomes rapidly unfurrowed. The wolf at the door and the ghoul on the shoulder slink away to pack their bags and consult their Bradshaws.
Good my ladies and gentles, for some months now I have been sore beset by life in general and by one Nazgul in particular. I have been foolish enough to let aforesaid Nazgul and his Dire Machinations prey upon my mind. But I have now triumphed over my woes (and foe) in much the same way that Truman won over his critics, to wit, by outliving them (outliving professionally, that is). It may be premature to say that I shall now step high, wide and plentiful, but my general outlook is now far closer to that of Frederick Altamont Cornwallis ( the Earl of Twistleton to the adoring populace Uncle Fred to his favourites) than to that of Marvin the Paranoid Android. My hat is quite distinctly cocked on the back of my head and I would, if I could, Scatter Largesse to the Multitude. Right. Time to cast the eye (now more measuring than beady) over what the world has been doing while we were not around to console it.
Roger certainly needs consolation. Poor mutt, he cried when he lost. Not Done, in my book, but I can see how Rafael Nadal-Parera can have that effect. Poetic justice in a way. FedEx now knows how Andrew Stephen Roddick must have felt for all those years when only one man stood between him and the title of best tennis player on Planet Earth. The sad part is that despite Nadal’s incredible athleticism and accuracy under pressure, Federer didn’t lose on the court. He lost in the mind. This was most evident at the French Open last year. It happened again in the fifth set at
In other news, I have narrowly escaped death or at least dismemberment by the simple expedient of never having been to Mangalore. I’m normally peace-loving, discreet and prudent to the point of cowardice. One thing that really irritates me, however, is women being hassled. If this gets to the point where they are physically assaulted, this mouse will roar. Fat lot of good that would do anybody, of course. I’m not the kind of chap who looks good wearing his undies outside (spandex) pants, so if I reacted in that kind of situation, all I’d achieve would be my own rapid spifflication. Still and all … I sadly fear that if Mangalorisation becomes a widespread phenomenon, Pureed Babu might be on the menu of some not-too-finicky canine. (I’d like to think I could take a couple of them down with me, but life rarely follows my story-lines)
(Update: apparently Mangalorisation happened today in Gangotri Bar in Madiwala,
(Data point: There’s a blog purportedly by Dr. V.S. Acharya, Home Minister of the State of
When all the channels were culpable to some extent, why do so many people love to hate Ms. Duh-tt? (When I last checked, there was no Facebook group titled “Can u please get Rajdeep Sardesai / Arnab Goswami / Srinivasan Iyer off air?”) Could it be because she was the only Managing Editor who rushed to the spot, planted herself in front of the camera and shoved her mike in the most places? Do they not realise that she leads from the front and cannot allow her juniors to go to dangerous places (like In Front of Guns or In Front of the Camera)? Could it be that, despite her acumen and her objectivity and her succinct analysis (“As you can see, there’s a person in white at that window on the 9th floor” – would we ever have worked that out for ourselves?), despite her (gasp!) Padma Shri, there are some Indian television viewers who just don’t like her? Strange concept that, well-nigh unbelievable, of course EVERYbody loves her, but perhaps it’s worth investigating, psychos are everywhere, they could even be dangerous, one might be well-advised to get gag orders against them, it’s all in the interests of a free press and we know how much we need THAT.
One school of thought holds that the central character is more about the gag reflex than about gagging free speech, but what do I know. In any case, how many people in this country READ blogs anyway, let alone any single specific blog? You think it would make an iota of difference if ALL of us spewed venom about her? Get a life! What I can’t figure out is why she bothered. She should be serene in her superiority, knowing that her Padma Shri places her in the exalted company of Hans Raj Hans, Sania Mirza and of course Pa’s Favourite Girl.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday night and Thursday morning
Some things are as inevitable as death and taxes. Like the announcement from the cockpit once the lights of Bombay are in sight. Traffic congestion, holding pattern, “40 minutes to land”. Get on with it already. We KNOW we can’t land on time in Bombay, the odds are like hitting six sixes and getting a double hat-trick. In the same match. Why don’t you just shut up and let us sleep?
Sleep PAST the landing, if possible. Because it takes them a quarter of an hour to open the doors. While fat men stand in the aisle, like they have to be the first ones out that door, like it’s the start of a triathlon and not a disembarkation. And no matter whether it’s the morning flight or the late-night one, they’ll stink. This flight, they’ve boarded after a long day. Without showering. It’s only marginally better than the morning flight, when you can make out that some of them have left home without pooping and the prospect of the airport loos has stirred their stomachs.
Haven’t they heard of aerobridges? The bus to the terminal takes forever. They must have parked the plane a LONG way away. Like not just a different postal zone, a different TIME zone. While yet another fat man, oozing over the waistband of his jeans, reaches up to steady himself with the straps. Thus bringing his fragrant underarm to the same level as my face. All the perfumes of Araby etc. The situation is further spiced by the driver taking evasive action. To avoid an AIRLINER. I knew Bombay traffic is weird, but this is taking it a little too far.
This city never sleeps. Traffic – only cars this time – still snarls up the turn-off from the flyover. Which has a pocked surface, the kind caused by water retention. Excuse me? On a sloping surface? What did they use for topping, bread crumbs? And the piety. Prabha Devi, Mahim Church, Haji Ali – all crowded at a quarter past ten. Finally, the turn on to the road by the sea. And hel-looo, what have they DONE on this new building? A huge glass prism that changes colour? If I were in the next building and that monster blinked in my bedroom window, I’d get some RDX!
Fortunately, the buffet is still open when I check in. Who cares about good tenderloin turning into beef jerky, I’m starving. And the café Viennoise (YOU tell ‘em, Amit) afterwards is good. Sleep is slow to come, but I can look out of the window at the winking lights across the water.
The morning smoothes away all the little mind-wrinkles of the journey in. I wake up on the 28th floor, looking out on the bay. Tiny boats, wave patterns, cloud shadows, lines of surf, and the new towering Bombay skyline. And for the cream swirl and cherry to top off the morning, my first meeting is cancelled. Carpe diem!
Sleep PAST the landing, if possible. Because it takes them a quarter of an hour to open the doors. While fat men stand in the aisle, like they have to be the first ones out that door, like it’s the start of a triathlon and not a disembarkation. And no matter whether it’s the morning flight or the late-night one, they’ll stink. This flight, they’ve boarded after a long day. Without showering. It’s only marginally better than the morning flight, when you can make out that some of them have left home without pooping and the prospect of the airport loos has stirred their stomachs.
Haven’t they heard of aerobridges? The bus to the terminal takes forever. They must have parked the plane a LONG way away. Like not just a different postal zone, a different TIME zone. While yet another fat man, oozing over the waistband of his jeans, reaches up to steady himself with the straps. Thus bringing his fragrant underarm to the same level as my face. All the perfumes of Araby etc. The situation is further spiced by the driver taking evasive action. To avoid an AIRLINER. I knew Bombay traffic is weird, but this is taking it a little too far.
This city never sleeps. Traffic – only cars this time – still snarls up the turn-off from the flyover. Which has a pocked surface, the kind caused by water retention. Excuse me? On a sloping surface? What did they use for topping, bread crumbs? And the piety. Prabha Devi, Mahim Church, Haji Ali – all crowded at a quarter past ten. Finally, the turn on to the road by the sea. And hel-looo, what have they DONE on this new building? A huge glass prism that changes colour? If I were in the next building and that monster blinked in my bedroom window, I’d get some RDX!
Fortunately, the buffet is still open when I check in. Who cares about good tenderloin turning into beef jerky, I’m starving. And the café Viennoise (YOU tell ‘em, Amit) afterwards is good. Sleep is slow to come, but I can look out of the window at the winking lights across the water.
The morning smoothes away all the little mind-wrinkles of the journey in. I wake up on the 28th floor, looking out on the bay. Tiny boats, wave patterns, cloud shadows, lines of surf, and the new towering Bombay skyline. And for the cream swirl and cherry to top off the morning, my first meeting is cancelled. Carpe diem!
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